Harlow cover
Harlow screenshot
Genre: Platform, Adventure, Indie, Arcade

Harlow

Best Soundtrack Nomination

It's up to you to throw an epic space surprise party but that means you need two things: party supplies and sweet lo-fi beats.

Harlow's original soundtrack features 26 tracks that celebrates laid-back, relaxing, and playful adventure. For all the fans that enjoyed Harlow's journey, we'd be honored if you'd nominate the game for the Best Soundtrack in the Steam Awards this year!

Need some more music for your studying, coding, or writing sessions? We've got you covered with our Chillhop collaboration and the Signals from Orbit EP on Spotify.




Harlow Major Update


  • Harlow no longer flickers when respawning.


  • The rotating object in Level 17 now recharges your jumps, making that segment significantly easier and less frustrating.


  • 2 pipe support beams in Level 5 now appropriately recharge your jumps.


  • 2 objects in a vertical key-slot in Level 30 are now the correct color.


  • Level 18's roller-key now requires a full placement in the slot before unlocking.
    In level 35, the area with 2 vertical lava pipes in a cave has had a fix applied to no longer rely on the moving block platforms. These lava pipes are now on a timer to create pockets of safety, and have minor updates to visuals.


  • A few sprites have been adjusted to fix very minor gaps in geometry, partially related to ultrawide screens.


  • The size of the aiming indicator in Level 33 is no longer the wrong size.


  • Adjusted the placement of some of the party supplies to align better.


  • Fixed a bug in the main menu related to Harlow's face not detecting a controller, and producing a bunch of error garbage behind the scenes.


  • Fixed an issue with rendering some of the ground geometry unnecessarily overlapping itself with multiple render passes in some areas.


  • Fixed a bug related to music sometimes having a weird clipping/hiccup when respawning.
    Made the secret QR code brighter and a little easier to activate.


  • Removed a bunch of misc out-of-bounds objects that didn't need to exist, throughout a variety of levels.


  • Made improvements to Performance Mode, to remove raycast-based lanterns, and instead use static sprites. This is aimed specifically at Mac performance struggling with physics.
    Found a few more opportunities to compress certain sprites to reduce the impact of background art layers.


  • Better-optimized and formatted all the music & SFX in the game. This should result in around 20% more efficient audio, and 10% smaller game size.


  • Made a few adjustments to sprite & LUT packing in general to hopefully run better across the board, with imperceptible visual changes.
    Optimized a few of the more expensive post-processing to run more efficiently without impacting the end-visuals.


  • Fixed an issue relating to compression settings generating garbage during build.
    Large hanging crane structures now bounce and sway appropriately.


  • Visual elements in Level 33 were adjusted to be better aligned.


  • Changed 12 Steam Achievements, replacing some of the obscure / hard-to-earn achievements for the various endings, and instead replaced them with gameplay-related milestones, like jumping 1000 times, or completing certain levels without dying.


  • The updated Steam achievements should retroactively grant based on existing gameplay stats. Some will grant at the main menu, while others will grant when certain gameplay data gets loaded in during levels or the mothership.

Get gold-winner Harlow for 50% off!

Get Harlow for 50% off as part of the Steam Summer Sale!
Harlow is a surprisingly chill platformer with fun physics chaos, a whole lo-fi album for a soundtrack, and robots throwing a space party! It's a vibey game with tight controls and TONS to things to unlock.

Save the humans & plan an epic surprise party with your robot friends! Unlock dozens of party supplies to customize the party how you want, and unlock different endings!

You can grab Harlow for 50% off (!!!!) as part of the Steam Summer Sale, for a limited time!

More about Harlow:
✅ Won Gold at the 2022 NYX Game Awards
✅ Full album of chill lo-fi music, co-produced by Obfusc (Monument Valley, NeoCab)
✅ Full gamepad support & tight controls
✅ Thoughtful & challenging level design
✅ Dozens of party supplies & 12 endings to unlock

I hope you'll pick up Harlow and jump into the space party madness!
Arman
Solo-dev of the game

Achievements, Refinements & Bugfixes

A medium-sized trove of updates.


Hi everyone! Thanks for everyone who's picked up the game so far, and for everyone who's left reviews! This update fixes a few things that weren't quite working right, optimizes a few things for a smoother experience, and brings the initial set of Steam Achievements live.

This update affects both the PC & Mac versions.

Quality



  • There are now over two dozen Steam Achievements to unlock!
  • If you're mid-game, Steam achievements related to game progress should retroactively unlock!
  • Optimized some of the objects in-game to be less resource intensive. This should provide a smoother gameplay experience in the later levels (26-40).
  • Made some Mac-specific optimizations to help the game run smoother, even with Performance Mode turned off.
  • Adjusted some geometry colliders in a few levels.
  • Added a sound effect to the bouncy propulsion pads.
  • Reworked some environmental details that didn't affect gameplay, but look nicer.
  • Made visual improvements to Performance Mode in some spots.
  • Fixed a few areas where props were missing or not rendering correctly.

  • Reworked some of the hologram effects to be less dramatic and easier to see.
  • Fixed some audio balancing.


Accessibility



  • Updated the mouse cursor to have a slight drop-shadow, making it easier to see against some of the backgrounds (especially in the First Act).
  • Fixed some issues with inverting the aiming with the hotkey.
  • Made Harlow's projected aiming line brighter, making it a bit easier to see in some cases.


Bug Fixes



  • Fixed an issue where party data would sometimes appear to spawn onboard the R1-Humanity if you returned from a level without collecting any.
  • Level 15 now has its music active.
  • Manifesto can no longer hard-lock Harlow mid-conversation.
  • Fixed an issue with Harlow's jump lights.
  • Fixed an issue where the end of a level sometimes wouldn't trigger.
  • Fixed a bug related to very rapid mouse clicks.
  • Level success screens should no longer allow many rapid "Continue" button presses (lol sorry GiantBomb team!)
  • The rolling key in Level 2 now more reliably triggers the key-port, and no longer needs an extra "hit".
  • Fixed a few typos here and there.
  • Fixed an issue where Harlow's smiling face and the "No Jumps" hourglass would overlap.
  • Fixed an issue related to Harlow's "aiming" animation.
  • Fixed a few areas where you could sneak out of the level geometry.
  • Fixed many bugs related to the glowing launched discs.
  • Some cliff areas now appropriately destroy Harlow if you fall off.
  • The large hanging platforms, spinning platforms, and suspended beams now recharge your jumps and are much more sturdy.
  • A few places where your jumps wouldn't recharge have been fixed to appropriately recharge your jumps.


Thanks for playing Harlow! There's more planned for the future, so stay tuned :)
All the best,
Arman

Steam Achievements Testing

Hi everyone!
Another update is well on its way, which will introduce Steam Achievements!

To test the functionality ahead of release, I need to publish the achievements for the game on Steam. For a little while, you'll see them in your library, but there won't be any way to earn them in-game until I finish testing the new update.

Along with Steam Achievements, there's a bunch of performance improvements and bugfixes as part of this update too!

Thanks for your patience while I test things out.
Cheers!
Arman

Performance Mode & Big Smiles (update v1.0.0.33)



Enhanced Performance and Quality


Happy Friday, everyone! I'm thrilled to close-out launch week with another update, this time focusing on performance and quality-of-life.

Quality



  • Harlow now has an overjoyed smile when moving quickly.
  • When you unlock party supplies, an indicator now shows on-screen.


Performance



  • All platforms should see a lift in FPS thanks to some optimizations under-the-hood.
  • For those wanting an extra performance boost, go to the Main Menu Settings and enable Performance Mode. This will reduce some of the VFX and details, which can really help some GPUs run the game smoothly.
  • Lowered the overall CPU load of the game with more optimizations.


Bugs Fixed



  • Locked doors now correctly recharge your jumps when you land on them, fixing an issue that slowed down gameplay.
  • In level 13, sometimes you'd explode when hitting a certain cliff. That cliff has been spoken to, and has agreed to no longer do this.
  • Some levels have had their collider geometry fixed.
  • Language selection flags are now more clear when selected / not selected.
  • Level selection UI has had some optimizations to be easier and more clear to navigate.
  • Some localization issues have been fixed.
  • Better localization has been added in some places.
  • Some party supplies have had their placement slightly adjusted.


And with that, thanks for being a part of Harlow's launch week! There's more to come, so stay tuned! :)
All the best,
Arman

Update v1.0.0.29 now live for all platforms



Hi everyone! This update squashes a bunch of bugs (aka, limited edition features), and makes an adjustment to a certain frustrating level :)

Bugs Fixes



  • Fixed an issue with the wrong text being displayed in the Party Supplies menu.
  • Fixed an issue pertaining to some non-English special characters.
  • Level 3's second respawn point now correctly respawns Harlow.
  • Fixed an issue that caused jumps to not deplete correctly when using a gamepad.
  • Fixed an issue with pausing while respawning.


Level Adjustments



  • The acid pipes in Level 7 were extra frustrating. I've adjusted the acid to be more forgiving & consistent.


Thanks so much for playing Harlow. I'm a solo-dev, so I definitely appreciate your patience and understanding!
Best,
Arman

Happy Launch Day For Harlow!

[previewyoutube="zGtLYwjzr90;full"]
Launch day is finally here!! After ~2 years of solo development, I'm thrilled for people to jump in and explore the world with Harlow. Here's what awaits you:

  • 40 handcrafted levels with challenging, unique gameplay.
  • 80 minutes original soundtrack of lo-fi jams co-produced by Obfusc (Monument Valley, NeoCab).
  • Dozens of party supplies to unlock & enjoy, such as a ball pit and a snack portal!
  • Multiple endings depending on what kind of party you create.
  • Bonus endgame sandbox level and unlockable secret content.

Harlow has been such a joy to work on these last couple of years. It's my first game as a solo developer, so my hope is you enjoy playing this chill, lighthearted world as much as I enjoyed making it.
Stay safe & healthy out there!
Best,
Arman

Harlow Demo Out Now For The Steam Next Fest 2021

It's finally here! The first-ever Harlow demo is available now for you to play, enjoy, and even help improve the game tremendously by reporting any bugs right from the demo. You have to hurry though. The Harlow demo is only available until October 7th. After that, it will go back to the space station where it can rest and prepare for the biggest party ever.

Come hang out with Harlow's indie developer, Arman Nobari from Overthrow Studio, and Marketing Manager, Donell Tucker from Rogue Games to showcase everything awesome about Harlow on October 1st at 11:00 AM PST. You can ask questions, join the discord, and really dive into the beautiful and cool world of Harlow.

Hope to see everyone there!